Domain Names Forum

I've taken on a small client X that requires changes to their website. The issue is that their last company Y did everything for them. This means that (although they paid said company Y) the hosting and domain are blocked from transfer and entirely in company Y's name. Client X has no login information.

Now company Y has folded.

Is there anything that can be done to give Client X control of the domain back?

Assuming that the domain is registered in the company's name, simply email the registrar and ask what their procedures are for resetting the login. It could be as simple as them looking up your company in the phone book and talking to you.

In the UK, the Companies House website lists companies that have ceased trading. This (or equivalent) information may help you convince the registrar you are legit.

You could also try some good old fashioned social engineering. i.e. get the name of someone at the old company, see if you can give them a call and ask for assistance.

It can be easy or difficult, depending on the folks from company Y and the registrar. I had a person I helped move a website for, his last hosting company guy committed suicide. The colo company where the site resided actually asked for a death cert.

Presumably the website identifies the company that "owns it" somewhere on the "about" page. If you can prove the registered company has gone bust, that may be sufficient.

Also bear in mind there are (presumably) other clients in the same position, probably with the same registrar so the ground work may already have been laid.

Irrespective of anything else, you should email the registrar, explain the situation clearly and concisely, and ask what their procedures are to rectify the situation. I imagine most registrars will have encountered this problem before - you may be imagining problems that aren't there.

This happened to me a couple of times.... one for a domain registered to a company and one for a domain registerd to a person who went bankrupt. Both were .co.uk domains

In both cases we spoke to the appointed administrator/insolvency company - and asked what was happening to the domain names. They weren't sure.

We called them every Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Eventually we noticed that the registration for the domains changed to the administrator..... we kept calling them. We were told they were trying to value them, so we went to a broker and got them to put an offer in on our behalf. The offer was accepted and days later we had them registered to us.

The previous Registrar company were being a pain about moving it to our account (same Registrar) so we opened a new account, paid Nominet £10 to change the Registrar tag, and it was in our hands hours later for setting up. J